The insurance exhibit

The limits you already wrote, standing behind every request you publish.

Somewhere in the service contract is an insurance article, and it is usually an exhibit at the back with your name on it. It names the lines, the limit on each one, who has to appear as certificate holder, which of your entities the contractor’s policy has to extend to, and how much notice you get if it is cancelled. It was negotiated once and it has governed every contractor since.

VendoRFP takes the figures out of that article and holds them as a standing requirement, per trade, so a certificate is read against your numbers instead of against a default somebody else chose.

Create your accountCommercial real estate

The coverage lines, and the column that is yours

The 8 lines you can set a figure against, in the words a published request prints them in. The column is blank because the numbers are yours: you type one against each line your article names, per trade, and mark it required or preferred.

CoverageYour minimumRequired or preferred
General liability (per occurrence)
General liability (aggregate)
Workers' comp / employer's liability
Auto liability
Umbrella / excess
Professional liability
Pollution liability
Crime / employee dishonesty

Whose numbers

Nothing carries a default, per trade or otherwise.

One tower asks a million per occurrence and the industrial park down the road wants umbrella cover on top of it. Roof work usually carries a heavier number than the lobby. You set a figure per trade and mark each line required or preferred, and the set you build is the set every request in that trade goes out with.

The rule, as the platform states it

You set the coverage limits you require, often the number your own insurer or lender asks for. A vendor whose recorded coverage falls below one of them cannot propose on your work until it is raised.

Raising a figure changes what the next request asks for. Companies already carrying enough are unaffected; the rest see the new number the next time they try to answer you.

The check

The check is arithmetic, and here is the arithmetic.

Three things come off a certificate and are held against your article. They are the same three for every trade, every building and every company, which is what makes the answer the same whoever is looking at it.

The figure on each line

Every line your exhibit names is compared against the amount the certificate carries for it. The comparison is a subtraction, and the answer is either that the figure clears yours or that it falls short by an amount the company is told.

The date the policy runs to

The end date comes off the certificate and is held with the figure. A policy whose date has passed fails its line on the date rather than sitting quietly in the file at last year’s number.

Whether a person read it

A company types what it carries when it joins, and a reviewer opens the certificate and confirms it. Until that has happened, the figure is reported to you as the company’s own statement, and it is labelled as exactly that.

Required and preferred

Two settings, and they do different work.

Marking a line required makes it a condition of answering: a company under your figure is stopped before a proposal exists, and it is told the shortfall in dollars so it knows what to ask its broker for. Marking a line preferred keeps it on the request and reports it to you, and a company under that figure can still write.

Required

A condition of answering

Use it for the lines your article treats as non-negotiable. The company sees the gap in dollars, raises the policy, and answers you the same week. Nobody prices work they were never going to be awarded.

Preferred

Reported, and it opens the door

Use it for a line you would rather have than insist on. It travels with the request, the answer tells you where the company stands on it, and you decide with the figure in front of you rather than after the award.

The day it lapses

A late certificate has 30 days to reach the file. A coverage line whose policy date has passed does not wait.

Policies renew on their own calendar and brokers send certificates when they send them. The window is for the paperwork, not the policy: a company whose coverage is genuinely in force is not shut out over a certificate in transit, and that window closes on the day it says it does. A line that has actually expired fails the day it expires, with no window at all.

The claim, as the platform makes it

Insurance and trade credentials verified, expiration dates tracked, and a lapse pauses new proposals and new work.

What that buys you at renewal time is a file that is already current, rather than an afternoon spent finding out which of last year’s certificates expired in October.

The six answers

Every line comes back as one of these.

One line, one answer, and the same six wherever you are looking from: your own screen, the company’s, or the record of a request that closed two years ago.

Meets

The certificate carries this line at or above your figure, a reviewer has read it, and the policy still has time to run.

Short

The line is there and the number is under yours. The company sees the difference in dollars and can answer your request as soon as the policy is raised.

Missing

Your article asks for a line this company has filed nothing against. It becomes a live answer the day the certificate covering that line reaches the file.

Expired

The end date on the policy has passed. The line fails on its own date, whatever figure it was carrying the day before.

Stated, not read yet

The company has entered a figure and the certificate behind it has not been opened yet. You are shown the number and told whose it is.

Preferred, and under

A line you marked preferred rather than required, carried below your figure. It travels with the answer, so you weigh it yourself with the price in front of you.

How a certificate is verified

The insurance exhibit

Put your article's numbers in once and let them stand behind every request.

Create an account, set a figure against each line your exhibit names, and mark the ones that are conditions of answering. VendoRFP reads what arrives against them.

Create your accountHow verification works

The insurance article is the part of a service contract that keeps working after everybody has signed, and it is the part nobody has time to police by hand.

Start freeCommercial real estate

Industries we serve

Janitorial and day porterBuilding engineeringHow a request works